National Birth Trends Catch Up with Boston: Babies of Color are the Majority

Today’s Washington Post reports that minority babies for the first time outnumber white infants nationally. Nationally, 50.4% of children under 1 are Hispanic, black, Asian American or in other minority groups.

Boston’s young children have reflected this trend for quite some time. Data from the 2010 Census shows that 71.5% of Boston’s 34,741 children birth to five are not white. 29.3% are Hispanic, 29% are African American/Black, 5.7% are Asian and 7.5% are multiracial/other – compared with 28.5% who are white.

This is in sharp contrast to data on the whole population. Even though Boston is a majority-minority city, 47% of the population is white, 22.4% is black/African American, 17.5% is Hispanic, 8.9% is Asian and 12.3% are multiracial/other.

For more on Boston’s demographics, check out the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s Census reports.